BOWLING GREEN — The Bowling Green State University football team held its second scrimmage of the spring at Perry Stadium on Saturday.

But don't tell that to sophomore Cameron Truss and the Falcons defense.

"We're treating these practices like game situations," Truss said. "We're going to go hard, we're going to celebrate, and we're going to have a good time."

The defense did a lot of celebrating in Saturday's scrimmage. BG defenders had three interceptions — Truss had two of them, one of which he returned for a score — and also recovered a fumble.

Meanwhile, the offense did score a couple of touchdowns and set up several field goals.

But the key, according to BG football coach Dave Clawson, was getting a chance to see his young team in action.

"Any time you scrimmage, you see good things and bad things," he said. "The most important thing for this team is that they play a lot of reps."

The Falcons did do that, running roughly 150 plays — about 50 plays more than a typical scrimmage. And unlike last Saturday, which saw the offense gain an edge, the defense held the upper hand Saturday.

"I thought our defensive line played very well today," Clawson said. "Chris Jones is a very good football player, and Kevin Alvarado was very active. And Ted Ouellet is having a good spring for us — he is turning himself into a good football player for us.

"I thought our defensive line was very active and our secondary made some good breaks on the ball."

Midway through the scrimmage Truss stepped in front of a sideline pass by redshirt freshman quarterback Trent Hurley and raced roughly 75 yards down the sidelines for the score.

Four drives later Truss picked off a deep pass by sophomore QB Matt Schilz and returned it better than 50 yards.

"We got great pressure from the defensive line, and that was how I was able to get the picks," Truss said.

Truss smiled when he was asked about a fight between junior linebacker Dwayne Woods and junior offensive lineman Jordon Roussos at the end of his second interception.

"We've been fired up all week," Truss said of the defense. "We knew we were going to come out here and go hard."

The report card on the defense wasn't straight A's, however.

"We have to clean up the tackling on the back end — we have to get guys on the ground," Clawson said. "Some guys did it, and some guys didn't.

"The guys who tackle back there are going to be the guys who play."

The Falcons have one more practice this Tuesday before hosting this year's spring game on Friday at Perry Stadium starting at 7 p.m.